Locking A Monitors Refresh Rate

[Geoff Leven]

Hi all,

Its been a while since I been here. The question I have is about Locking a monitors refresh rate while playing a game.

Firstly though let me quickly say I am a maniac when it comes to a smooth gaming experience, and also a graphics whore. I love my eye candy in games and always trying to get the smoothest gaming experience from every game I have. Sometimes if I can't get a constant smooth 60fps in a game I'll either lower the graphical settings or cap the fps to 30 and keep all the eye candy on - depending on if I loose too much eye candy or not. Sometimes though capping the fps to 30 is over compensating, and If I were always able to lock my monitors refresh rate to 50hz, (I can run some games fine at 50hz) this would be ideal for me at times when I need it. But this is the problem I have. Some games seem to override the refresh rate I set it to via the NCP or through the Windows display properties.

Thus my question is, is there a way to LOCK you refresh rate and not have the game override it??

I have found hints from the net suggesting that whether the game is running in dx9/dx11 is a contributing factor, but I'm still not sure of the whole thing. I have tried a program called Powerstrip, but games still override any settings I apply through it aswell.

 

[manofchalk]

Can you rephrase the question a bit better? Haviong trouble wrapping my head around what you want and how that ties into your problem. Because to me it seems like your trying to improve your graphics performance by reducing your monitors refresh rate, which doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Geoff Leven]

In a nut shell. I want to lock my monitors refresh rate at 50hz, but games override this sometimes and set the RR to 60hz.

 

[manofchalk]

How is that a bad thing?

But anyway, are you sure that the number your seeing is actually the refresh rate of the monitor, not the FPS of the game? Just a game will give more FPS than the monitor can handle, its just that the monitor wont display those extra frames.
Have you tried setting the refresh rate in your graphics card driver rather than the Windows utility?

 

[Geoff Leven]

I said "I set it via the NCP" - nVidia control panel. If you have a nVidia card, then you can try this for yourself. Set your monitors RR to 60hz, then cap the fps to 50fps via any 3rd party tool or even nVidia Inspector, then boot up and game and take note at how smooth it is (or rather, isn't). Quit the game, then change your monitors RR to 50hz, then boot up another game (hoping that the game doesn't override your RR setting - you won't see any difference if the game has overridden the RR you chose) then you will clearly see a difference at how smooth it is now compared to capping your fps to 50 and having your monitors RR set 60hz.

The whole point of me wanting to set my monitors RR to 50hz and wanting it to STICK is:

A) My computer has enough grunt to consistantly run the game at 50fps and,

B) Games run much more smoothly when their fps can match the monitors RR.

When you cap the fps to a lower number then what you have set the RR too, you can see a noticeable stutter/fluctuation when you move the view/mouse while in game.

The exception to this rule is when you cap the fps to 30 and use 'smooth vsync' via the nVidia control panel. this also results in a SMOOTH 30fps experience.

And yes I'm positive the game is overriding the RR setting as I checking what refresh rate the monitor currently is while in-game by checking the in-built monitor setting by pressing the button on the monitor itself.

Note: I forgot to mention in running a SLI setup aswell.

 

[manofchalk]

I believe what you are seeing is called Screen Tearing, and typically is only an issue when the FPS of the game exceeds the refresh rate of the monitor.

Have you tried limiting the refresh rate on the monitor itself, rather than through the Nvidia Control Panel? Its possible that the Control panel is actually limiting the video signal going to the monitor at 50hz, however the monitor is still running at 60hz as it would be controlled by its own settings.

 

[Geoff Leven]

Noooo.. You clearly don't get what I'm explaining as thoroughly as I can. Although I forgot to mention aswell that with the test I suggested you try above you should have vsync turned on with everything. I know exactly what screen tearing is, and hate it I rarely play with vsync off. My monitor doesn't allow my to change the refresh rate via its own in-built settings.